


the rest

by flyler



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Characters to be added, F/F, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 12:53:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16974930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyler/pseuds/flyler
Summary: It’s been three years, but cliche as it is to say it, she looks as beautiful as ever; time was never something to curb Maggie Sawyer.





	the rest

**Author's Note:**

> 1) this is a late birthday present to huda, or @Igbtzari on twitter. it ended up being multichapter, aka a lot longer than planned. sorry this is late; it's not my fault you were born during finals season.  
> 2) this is an AU, but you do not need to know what it's based off of to read it. and i'm taking some liberty in calling it an AU because i'm also making a lot of stuff up in terms of alex and maggie's relationship.  
> 3) i will make a reminder every chapter, but dashes will indicate a change in time. asterisks will just be a scene change. i don't think that matters in this chapter, but it'll be used later!  
> 4) enjoy! can you guess what this is an AU of before the end of the chapter?

Alex pushes her way through a crowd of sweating bodies to order a drink at the bar. The bass-boosted beats of the music reverberates through her ears as she orders a scotch.

 

“Alex.” Alex whips her head around and it’s Maggie. It’s been three years, but cliche as it is to say it, she looks as beautiful as ever; time was never something to curb Maggie Sawyer. Her hair is shorter, brushing her shoulders. The curls swish when Maggie does her signature head-tilt. “I almost didn’t recognize it was you, what with the short hair and all. Almost came here to hit on you. You make a good butch. But I saw the gloves.”

 

Alex looks down to see her leather gloves clasped around her drinking glass. They don’t fully cover her hands―the back of her palms are exposed. They’re black. They match Maggie’s eyes in the dim club lighting. The strobes of red and blue and green and purple dance across Maggie’s profile and it makes her look like she’s in a movie. “Well, I won’t stop you.”

 

“From flirting?” Maggie shakes her head. “Nah. I’m not going to make your head any bigger.”

 

“I have to have a big head. Fits my big brain.” Both of them titter, stuck in old ways of teasing, and Alex’s covered fingers instinctively inch toward Maggie’s exposed ones.

 

Maggie moves her hand so it lays at her side.

 

“So, what have you been up to?” Maggie explains the new case she’s gotten, one about a woman who shot out of self defense and is in the mental aftermath of being trialed as not guilty. Alex listens intently, but the outspoken critic nestled comfortably in the back of her mind wonders if it’s out of pity. Alex’s life isn’t going terribly or anything, but Alex hadn’t wanted to let Maggie go in the first place. What’ll happen now that Maggie Sawyer is in front of her and in the flesh?

 

Alex always finds solidarity in the one thing she always seems to have too much of: touch. She cements herself in reality through the very real sensation of the world around her. As Alex pays attention to Maggie’s story, she repeatedly taps her finger on the bar counter. The amount of activity on the counter has caused the top to be sticky enough to create resistance when Alex gently lifts her finger. She’ll have to wash her gloves later, but she’s grounded.

 

(It’s hard not to get metaphorically stuck in the clouds when she’s around Maggie.)

 

“I’ve talked too much about myself,” Maggie says. “What have you been up to?”

 

Alex shrugs. “The regular. Just helping kids realize the world isn’t as terrifying as they think it is.” She laughs bitterly. “Or in the ways they think it is. But you knew that.” She’s about to motion for her scotch to be refilled, but Maggie’s hand hovers above her wrist before she can.

 

Maggie’s fingertips barely pass over the skin between Alex’s gloves and leather jacket but it makes Alex shiver. Maggie is scared Alex will go off the deep end. Maggie misses her.

 

“I was fine,” Alex snaps. She yanks her wrist away. “I’ve only had one. And I came in a Lyft.”

 

“But why get wasted here when you could just get wasted at home?”

 

Alex loosely gestures to the club, to the dancefloor of grinding bodies. “Why do you _think_?”

 

Maggie’s jaw tenses. The pause she gives is a knife too dull to cut into thick sexual tension, and she’s about to speak when Alex’s phone rings.

 

Alex grimaces at the caller ID and lets it vibrate until it goes to voicemail before putting the phone back in her pocket.

 

“Who was it?”

 

“Kara.” Alex huffs. “I don’t need her calling me and questioning where I’m at. Similar to what you’re doing, actually.”

 

“I only wondered why you didn’t choose the cheaper option.”

 

“Oh?” Alex leans her head into a propped arm. “Why’d you stop me from drinking what I want, then?”

 

Maggie takes a few steps toward the exit, not wanting to answer, but Alex, bold, gets up. She puts her tab on the counter and gets closer to Maggie. “I know why.” Alex takes a pointer finger and jabs it at Maggie. She lets it land on Maggie’s sternum. She keeps it there.

 

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Maggie says. “It didn’t when we split.”

 

Guilt. “I didn’t _want_ to―”

 

“But you did.” Maggie takes Alex’s wrist, this time high enough that it’s around her jacket, and lowers the finger. “I can’t do this again, Alex. Not if it ends up the same.”

 

“Doesn’t have to be that again,” Alex murmurs. Do Maggie’s lips taste the same? Do they taste better?

 

“Oh?” Maggie’s grip tightens. Her voice is quieter, but not softer. Alex doesn’t know if she hates it or likes it. “You’re such a phobe you only take that shit off when you fuck me. What does that say about you, Alex? What do things say about me? How fucked up would it be for both of us to have a one night stand with our ex-fiancee?”

 

“I’ve always been a bit fucked up,” Alex says. “You read the book.”

 

“You know I don’t believe it.”

 

“One time, Maggie. What could one time do?”

 

“I don’t know. That’s not my decision to make.” Maggie finally lets go of Alex. “It’s not a decision I _want_ to make.”

 

Alex takes a deep breath. She takes off her gloves, grips both of them tightly in one hand. With her other hand, she cups Maggie’s face and kisses her.

 

(It’s almost as good as the first time Alex kissed Maggie in a bar.)

 

Maggie’s lips are a warm cottage after working in the snow all day. Excitement. Relief. A lot of unbridled lust. A few other words that are too deep, too raw for a relationship so tender it needs stitches and a few weeks rest― but they’re there.

 

Alex’s heart is naked, a hermit crab without a shell on a sandy beach about to be drowned by the growing shoreline. She feels that Maggie’s is similar, except it’s more dooming. Like an asteroid headed to Earth.

 

It kills Alex knowing it’s her own fault Maggie is so hesitant about the two of them. They’re out of harmony, enough sharps and flats that they sound terrible together.

 

But Alex wants them to be a symphony. And when she lets go of Maggie, when she stops a kiss she wishes could last an eternity, she looks into Maggie’s eyes, remembers the touch of a warm face and she knows Maggie feels enough of the same that they both know how this night is going to end.

 

Alex holds Maggie’s hand, and tugs her out of the bar. They head to Alex’s apartment.

 

― ― ― ― ―

 

As a child psychologist, this isn’t Alex’s first rodeo in an abuse case. She uses the talents she was born with and the skills she gained through education and hard work to make sure kids don’t turn out as fucked up as her.

 

The kid she has now is in a unique situation. In the middle of an ugly divorce, if Alex is called, there’s usually an obvious perpetrator. Surprisingly, Alex has had to deal with an equal amount of shitty fathers _and_ shitty mothers. Terrible parenting doesn’t conform to a gender.

 

Something Alex knows all too well.

 

Fifteen-year-old Jamie is in the type of situation that when Alex reviewed the case file, she couldn’t determine what was going on, but it was complicated. Both parents were advocating for full custody on the grounds that the other parent was abusive, there was nothing in the file pointing towards one parent being the common denominator. Maybe Jamie is in the situation where both of her parents are terrible.

 

And if that’s true, Alex will help her get out of it. A plus side to being the owner of her own firm meant that while it was Jamie’s mother that called Alex, Alex didn’t have to answer to anyone higher in terms of how biased she had to be in her writings. And while most genuine psychologists are going to always be as unbiased as possible, Alex has seen some corrupted practices.

 

Alex walks into one of the many playrooms the city court has for cases like these. The carpet is the kind of muddled gray-blue-brown color years of barely-cleaned stains will give you and it smells like Clorox. It’s a Thursday afternoon in the middle of December, and Jamie is the only one in the room, if it could be called one, sectioned off by torso-high drywall. Alex loosens the scarf around her neck and puts her gloves quickly and neatly into her back pocket.

 

When Alex walks into the sectioned-off area, she sees a teenager, Jamie, playing with Legos.  

 

“You like Legos?” Alex asks. She sits down next to Jamie, leaning on part of the wall. Its uneven paint can be felt through Alex’s sweater.

 

“Not really,” Jamie says. She inspects the piece she’d had in her hand. It’s red, the same color as the teen’s converse, and the only color she’s wearing. Her zipped-up hoodie and jeans are black. “Mom and Dad took away my phone. Seems like they can agree on restricting me, I guess. I know what’s going to happen, though, okay?”

 

“What’s going to happen?”

 

“Well, you’re with my mom, right? So you’re gonna try and convince me my dad hits me or something. And then I’ll live with my mom.” Jamie clicks pieces together as she talks. Alex sees no order or pattern to Jamie’s building, and has a feeling Jamie doesn’t see one, either.

 

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything,” Alex says. “Your mom may have hired me, but I don’t care about her. I care about making sure you’re where you’re safest.”

 

“I don’t think it’s with either of my parents,” Jamie admits. “I have an older cousin. He lives in Canada.”

 

“Do your parents know that’s what you think?”

 

Jamie just sags. “Not really. And all the international stuff… he’s only 20. I don’t wanna be a bother.”

 

“Hey.” Alex pauses Jamie’s hands from messing with the toys scattered on the ground and clasps them. She can feel Jamie’s anguish and confusion and guilt. “You’re not a bother, okay? And I don’t care what happens in that court. I’m on your side, okay?”

 

Jamie nods and then looks behind Alex. “Oh, look, here comes my dad’s psych, I guess.”

 

“Your dad’s…” Alex stands, only after giving a comforting hand-on-shoulder to the teen, and whips her head around to see who Jamie is looking at.

 

It’s another woman. And she’s hot.

 

“Are you Jamie Sullivan?” the woman asks, and when the girl nods, she squats down to shoot out a hand. “Maggie Sawyer.” When she notices Alex, she pauses. “You are…”

 

“The first psychologist. Alex Danvers.”

 

Maggie Sawyer stands back up to full height. Alex still has a few inches on her. “Bold of you to assume you’re the first one.” When Alex gives her a bewildered look, she just laughs. “Kidding, kidding. We’re here for the same reason, right?” She motions to Jamie, who’s now standing, hands in hoodie pockets. “Would you rather us have separate times with you, or do you want both of us at once?”

 

Jamie purses her lips. “Is that even legal?”

 

“I’m sure this isn’t the first time this has happened,” Maggie Sawyer says. “We can still keep the doctor-patient confidentiality, it’ll just be between the three of us. Worst case scenario, there’s paperwork, but nothing you’d have to fill out. Sound good?”

 

Jamie nods.

 

“Your parents will probably be out of court soon, if the commotion in the hall can attest,” Alex says. “Why don’t you go tell them what you’ve decided? And if they have a problem with it, they can talk to us.”

 

Jamie looks nervous, but goes.

 

“Poor girl,” Alex says. “What does your file say? We might have different ones.”

 

“After we deal with…” Maggie Sawyer pauses, “the parents, maybe we should go out for a drink sometime. Or food, if alcohol isn’t your thing. We should compare files and pre-notes. She already has a lot to handle in her parents and we should be as much of a team as possible. She’s going to need us.”

 

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Alex says.

 

Maggie Sawyer shrugs. “I didn’t have the same exact experience as her, but I’ve learned there’s two types of people that go into child psychology. The ones that know what it’s like and want to make the children equipped to deal with life, and the ones that don’t and want the children to be happy all the time. And the thing I’ve learned is that the second one rarely happens. The question is: which one am I going to be working with?”

 

― ― ― ― ―

 

Alex wakes up just before dawn like she usually does. Not a lot of sleep, but sleep is a luxury Alex hasn’t been able to afford for most of her life. The high of the night before slash morning of has worn off, but there’s another high that’s getting to wake up to Maggie that’s starting. When she moves to look at her alarm clock, Maggie’s body tenses as it wakes up.

 

“Go back to sleep,” Alex whispers.

 

There’s a grunt. “M’fine.”

 

Maggie turns to her and the shared comforter falls off her top. Alex remembers when they’d been close enough that seeing Maggie in the nude didn’t always spark lust int her―this is not that time.

 

“You have your case this morning?”

 

“Not for a few hours.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“But I need to go home. Shower, eat breakfast.”

 

Alex is ready to say goodbye through watching Maggie put on clothes when a shrill ring cuts them off.

 

“Not my ringtone,” Maggie says, and Alex groans, one of contempt, and picks up the phone.

 

“What?”

 

There’s sobbing on the other line. Alex immediately recognizes it as Sam.

 

“Sam? What’s the matter?”

 

“She was at the house, Alex. Kara was at the house. She told me she was going to L.A. but she lied.” The frantic words, coming out wish a rush of tears in each space, makes Alex’s skin crawl.

 

“She was at the house? What do you mean? _The_ house? Hill House?”

 

“Christ, Alex.” A sniffle. “Of course I fucking mean Hill House. She’s dead. She’s dead, Alex. Kara’s dead. She killed herself. She’s dead.”


End file.
